A much underrated work of Zola's, this book is a fascinating mixture of steamy sex and high finance, worthy of the best TV soap operas. It gives you all the tricks of insider dealing and how to take the risk out of real estate speculation. All this against the backdrop of the building of the modern Paris, the "City of Lights" we admire so much today. This is the world of "get-rich-quick" with a vengeance. Also possibly the first recorded use of a bearskin rug for illicit sex (between teenage son and father's second wife). A big improvement on Zola's first book, it deserves to be much better known than it is. A must for everyone who wants to be upwardly mobile.

Set in the heroic golden age of nineteenth century capitalism, this belated sequel to the second book in the Rougon-Macquart cycle, "La Curée", tells you in Zola's inimitable style about how the stock market works and the psychology of market players. Nothing has really changed since it was written over a hundred years ago. Read it and you may avoid losing your life savings in some scam or other, or you may find some ideas for a scam of your own. You would not be the first, if some recent scandals are anything to go by. If you're Jewish you may not like some of the remarks made by the book's main character, Aristide, but remember Zola's honourable role in the Dreyfus affair only a few years later. Now go and check the stability of your bank while you've still got the chance.

TRUTH is Emile Zola's last novel and was published after his death. It is his longest book and deals with the transformative power of Truth, Justice, and Love. It also deals with how social change happens slowly through generational change rather than by changing
the minds of individuals. It is the story of a teacher in a small French town fighting to prove the innocence of his fellow teacher, a Jew, who is accused of killing a child. The defenders of the teacher have to fight anti-Semitism in the Catholic Church, the government, and the press. Written after Zola's return from exile in England for his part in the Dreyfus Affair, the book draws much of its plot from his experiences fighting anti-Semitism. It is a powerful work that shows how anti-Semitism was used by the different factions in 19th CenturyFrance for their own ends.

This is Zola's third anti-clerical work and his strongest. The first two are LOURDES and ROME which deal with a priest's growing disillusion with his church. In TRUTH, the teacher knows that the real murderer is a Christian brother in the local Catholic school who is protected by the local priests. He has to expose the corruption in the church to prove the innocence of his friend. This plot has special relevance to Americans today who are struggling with stories of priests who molested young boys and a Catholic church that protected the priests rather than the children. In the preface written a hundred years ago, the translator states that this abuse by a cleric of a young boy "is not to be regarded as altogether exceptional" since many such crimes are hushed up by friends in the church.

The structure of the novel is well thought out and is composed of four books of four chapters each. Although narrated in the third person, the book is mostly told from the point of view of the teacher. This lack of objectivity is the weakest part of the novel because we only get to see the teacher's opponents through his limited and biased view. The book is Utopian in style with Truth conquering deceit and leading to a more perfect social structure.

This is an excellent presentation of historical events by a contemporary.

CONTRARY TO A COMMONLY HELD VIEW THAT THIS NOVEL IS EXCLUSIVELY FOR HARD-CORE ZOLA FANS, IT IS AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE ROUGON-MACQUART EPIC. IT IS THE FIRST ROUGON-MACQUART NOVEL AND IT PORTRAYS THE RISE OF THE SECOND EMPIRE WITH THE SAME FORCE AS ZOLA'S RENOWN NOVEL "LA DEBACLE/THE DOWNFALL" (THE NINETHEENTH IN THE ROUGON-MACQUART EPIC) PORTRAYS ITS DEMISE. HAVING SAID THAT, ONE MUST ADD THAT IN THE FRENCH LITERATURE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, ZOLA'S ROUGON-MACQUART EPIC IS AS IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTANDING THE FRENCH SOCIETY UNDER NAPOLEON III AS BALZAC'S "LA COMEDIE HUMAINE/THE COMEDY OF HUMAN LIFE" IS TO UNDERSTANDING THE FRENCH SOCIETY UNDER LOUIS-PHILIPPE, EVEN THOUGH THE LATTER CONSISTS OF 97 NOVELS, WHEREAS THE FORMER CONSISTS OF ONLY 20 AND FURTHERMORE, ONLY 19 NOVELS IN THE ROUGON-MACQUART EPIC DIRECTLY REFLECT THE PERIOD IN HISTORY BETWEEN 1852 AND 1870, BECAUSE ZOLA NEEDED THE NOVEL "DOCTOR PASCAL" TO EXPRESS HIS VIEWS ON THE HEREDITY THEORY.

UNLIKE THE OVERWHELMING MAJORITY OF THE ROUGON-MACQUART NOVELS, IN WHICH EVENTS TAKE PLACE IN PARIS, A SMALL SOUTHERN TOWN CALLED PLASSANS IS CHOSEN AS A SETTING. IN REALITY SUCH TOWN DOES NOT EXIST, IT IS ONLY INTENDED TO RESEMBLE A PLACE CALLED "L'AIX", WHERE ZOLA SPENT MOST OF HIS CHILDHOOD.

IT SHOWS HOW PIERRE ROUGON (THE OLDEST SON OF ADELAIDE FOUQUE) MAKES A CAREER FOR HIMSELF, HIS WIFE AND TWO OF HIS SONS DURING THE COUP D'ETAT. AGAINST THE BACKGROUND OF HIS RISE, WE WITNESS A TRAGIC FATE OF HIS NEPHEW SILVERE AND SILVERE'S BELOVED MIETTA. THEY DIE YOUNG FOR THEIR IDEALS.

THE SUBSEQUENT NOVELS WILL SHOW VARIOUS SIDES OF LIFE UNDER NAPOLEON III. ADELAIDE FOUQUE'S GRANDCHILDREN AND GREAT-GRANDCHILDREN WILL EITHER BE MAIN CHARACTERS OR AT LEAST PLAY A SECONDARY ROLE IN ALL OF THEM. MANY OF THESE CHARACTERS WILL POSSESS INNATE VICES OF DIFFERENT KINDS. FOR EXAMPLE, GERVAISE MACQUART'S ADDICTION TO ALCOHOL IN "L'ASSOMOIR/THE DRAM SHOP" TOGETHER WITH DIFFERENT KINDS OF NEUROSIS DEVELOPED BY HER SONS CLAUDE ("L'OUVRE/THE MASTERPIECE") AND JACQUES ("LA BETE HUMAINE/THE BEAST IN MAN") ARE ALL HEREDETARY. THE SAME GOES FOR THE DEPRAVED NATURE OF GERVAISE'S DAUGHTER NANA IN "NANA". ADELAIDE FOUQUE'S GRANCHILDREN FRANCOIS MOURET AND MARTA ROUGON ("LA CONQUET DES PLASSANS/THE CONQUEST OF PLASSANS") DIE AFTER GOING INSANE, LIKE THEIR GRANDMOTHER.

WE LEARN FROM THE SECOND CHAPTER OF THIS NOVEL THAT NOT ONLY ADELAIDE FOUQUE HERSELF, BUT HER FATHER AS WELL WAS INSANE. THEREFORE, ADELAIDE FOUQUE IS NOT THE ORIGIN OF THE VICES THAT RUN IN THE FAMILY. NONETHELESS, A GENEALOGICAL TREE OF THE ROUGON-MACQUART FAMILY INCLUDED IN THE NOVEL "DOCTOR PASCAL" BEGINS WITH HER.

Mostly about french people and long